


Of Peach-Flavoured Dreams

by Feynite



Series: Canon-ish Solavellan [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dancing, Dreams, F/M, slight crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6531415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feynite/pseuds/Feynite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a honeyed trap she weaves for him, in the Fade.</p><p>It takes her a long time to put it together. Navigating dreams was easier when she had the anchor, but she finds she retains a knack for it, even after it’s gone. Still. It takes her weeks of focusing. Of researching what she can find out, and improvising what she can’t.</p><p>She remembers Halamshiral. The light in his eyes, as he spoke of the intrigues he missed; the courtly games. The elaborate trappings. The beauty, and the complexity, she thought. A stage for his clever wit; a familiar hunting ground for the wolf in him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Peach-Flavoured Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Celtlassy on tumblr once asked me for a Labyrinth-style fairytale ballroom scene. I kind of switched who was hosting and who was beguiled, but the spirit of the notion remains, I think!

It’s a honeyed trap she weaves for him, in the Fade.

It takes her a long time to put it together. Navigating dreams was easier when she had the anchor, but she finds she retains a knack for it, even after it’s gone. Still. It takes her weeks of focusing. Of researching what she can find out, and improvising what she can’t.

She remembers Halamshiral. The light in his eyes, as he spoke of the intrigues he missed; the courtly games. The elaborate trappings. The beauty, and the complexity, she thought. A stage for his clever wit; a familiar hunting ground for the wolf in him.

So she makes this dream. Through dint of focus and creativity and sheer effort, with helpful spirits and one or two questionable bargains. The palace is shining. Grand and detailed, but subtle. Clean. Verdant plants wind their way throughout it. Blooming vines trail over golden statuary, and up mosaic-patterned walls. Crystal floors reflect ceilings covered in broad, blooming flowers. Windows open towards perfect starry nights, overlooking tangled gardens, as wisps, like butterflies, drift across the balconies.

Spirits fill the dance floors and drift throughout the corridors. Some of these are old enough to remember similar places. They enthuse over the dream. Offer advice, and help reshape it. Give it more form. There is an energy, an excitement, that perfectly suits the atmosphere of a party. There is even music, drifting through the glamorous halls. Haunting and faint, without an obvious source.

She waits.

She creates her trap, and she waits; clad in a deceptively simple green gown, that tumbles like falling leaves around her legs, with a silvery mask upon her face. It’s a match for the guises of the spirits whirling through the halls and winding across the dance floor. All of them masked; some more solid than others.

It’s obvious when he arrives. The dancers converge upon him. Desire tries to trick him, and Nostalgia trips him up. For a few rounds she lets them pull him along, drawing him into harmless dances. Sweeping him away in memories and fantasies, and stray dreams. The palace changes as his own influences seizes parts of the dream. The overgrown ceiling is traded for a glassy reflection of the star-filled sky. Some of the sculptures are replaced with small, silvery trees, and the blooming vines retreat from the statues. They fall to the floors instead, in tricky patterns that challenge the dancers’ steps.

She watches, catching his eye just for a moment before she vanishes into the throng.

He’ll find her on his own, soon enough. So she doesn’t delay much longer, drifting through the spirits until she comes up behind him, and catches his hand. Pulling him into a dance of her own.

“Vhenan,” she greets.

His clothing has changed since he arrived. Armour giving way to silver finery, and a black wolf’s mask.

“Did you do this?” he asks her. “How did you…?”

He has his intrigue to puzzle over. But with him for once not vanishing away, she finds all thoughts and plans fall aside in favour of enjoying the feel of her hands upon him. His upon her. The bright eyes behind his mask. Even if it’s only a dream, she has missed him so.

“Don’t you want to dance?” she asks him.

He looks at her as if he cannot decide whether she is real or not. She reaches up, pausing in her movements just long enough to push back her mask. He almost lets go of her then. But the music is still playing. There are steps yet to be walked. She cannot help but let a little of her longing into her gaze, and it seems the setting has battered down his usual reserve of self-restraint. He steps closer, instead. Begins leading her through unfamiliar movements that nevertheless seem a perfect match for the music drifting around them.

“What are you up to, vhenan?” he wonders.

“What am I always up to, Solas?” she replies. The steps of their dance send them swaying apart; bring them closer together.

Beneath his mask, his expression is inscrutable. 

“You have conjured up a piece of the past,” he tells her.

“A piece of the present. It is here _now_ , after all,” she replies.

The steps of the dance send her swaying, briefly, away.

“Only in a dream,” he says.

Gotcha.

She smiles at him.

“I believe someone once told me the reality of dreams is a subject for debate,” she counters. His grip tightens on her as they come close again. She leans into him. Leans up, and steals a kiss. Just the faintest brush of lips.

When she pulls back again, his steps falter.

“Vhenan…” he says.

“Just dance with me,” she asks. “Just for tonight. Set Fen’Harel aside and be Solas again, if only for a little while.”

Every time he takes that mask off, she knows, it gets harder and harder to put i back on.

She’s counting on that.

“And what will this distraction cost me?” he wonders. “Does the good Magister have another raiding party waiting in the wings?”

Her hands slide around his waist. They are not dancing, now. They are only holding one another, as the scene plays out around them; movement and beauty flitting beyond their sight, as their gazes remain locked on one another.

“I miss you,” she says.

His hands slide away from her.

“I cannot,” he tells her.

She draws her touch upwards, brushing her fingers across the skin just beneath the edge of his mask.

“One night,” she asks of him. “There are no raiding parties. There will be no cost in the real world. There is just a dream, and even dread wolves must sleep. Mustn’t they? When else will you and I dance in halls such as these?”

His breath catches. His eyes drop down, taking her in as if seeing her properly for the first time. The dress, and the scene; the mask still pushed up on her head.

Slowly, he lifts his hand, and pushes back his own. Without the mask his expression is much clearer. Longing is written painfully upon it.

He leans down, and she meets him halfway, catching his lips as his hands close around her once more.

“Ma vhenan,” he breathes.

She smiles against him.

At the end of the night, she knows, he will be gone. But for now, she has him caught. For now, he is with her, and they will dance. And he will forget at least a little of why he means to do what he must do. And she will kiss him as many times as she is able, and hold him as closely as she can.

The music picks up.

“Dance?” she asks him.

With a slight softening of his expression, he does.


End file.
